Island. They are meditative, graspable and productive to think with. On the one hand, they are often conceptualized as the beginning of the world, sites of existential and utopian longing, tranquil and innocent: Paradise. On the other hand, they represent the end of the world, as sites of imprisonment and exile, places where contaminants are made to disappear, dumping grounds …

Planet Earth has entered the time of the Anthropocene. For natural scientists, this means that human activity, taken as a whole, has come to rival geological and biophysical forces in its effect on the planet. Disturbing material comparisons communicate the deep weirdness of this fact. For example, there’s now enough concrete on the planet to produce a 2mm thick, full-scale …